


Backstory

by 0GVButterworth0



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cheating, First Love, First Time, Heartbreak, M/M, May/December Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-26 06:54:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/962905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0GVButterworth0/pseuds/0GVButterworth0
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the back story for why Harry became what he is -- Unable to love and doing questionable work for a gay-for-pay website.  Inspired in no small part by the movie Fish Bowl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Backstory

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago, I was doing an RP with a friend (that's role playing, for those of you who don't know -- I had a stable of characters, so did my RP partner, we decided on a setting and then threw our characters into the playground) revolving around a fraternity that paid their way through school by being part of a gay-for-pay website. Harry was one of my characters and I decided he should have a back story as to how he ended up in such a spot and why he reacted to the other characters the way he did.
> 
> It was supposed to just be a dry recounting of facts (it starts out that way), but then I got into it. Whaddyagonnado.
> 
> That RP dissolved (much to my dismay) but I found this little bit of back story and thought I'd post it as a way of saying hello to the community! I've been working on a Narry, Nouis, Zouis, Niam fic (a completely different universe) that is 104 pages as of right now and I didn't want to dump it on everyone without introducing myself first.
> 
> Nice to meet you all. I'm GV. Hope to see you again, soon.

So—

Harry's mother left his father while Harry was young because the man had been alcoholic and abusive. He was raised in a single family home for most of his life. Life was not good for Harry who was poor, prone to acting out and clearly had issues from the things he'd experienced as a child. The only male role models he had were some of his mother's boyfriends but they never lasted very long. In his last year of high school, his mother brought home a handsome, smart, funny and gregarious man named Connor Stephens who was an English professor at the highly renowned Winnington University. 

Harry, who had always been somewhat rough around the edges and distrustful, warmed quickly to this man who was the first person to ever really see something in Harry. And Connor really did: Harry was smart and eloquent, which no one else had noticed because Harry tended to be aloof. Harry was funny and warm, but no one else had noticed because Harry was usually guarded and defensive. But most impressive was that Harry was a dancer and he had a way of moving that was like nothing Connor had ever seen. He could flow and twist in ways that on any other man would've looked completely dainty, but Harry had an undeniable masculinity and power that was present in every gesture. This was how Connor started to fall in love with smart, funny Harry. It didn't hurt of course that Harry was a gorgeous young thing with a snarky smile, silky locks, and a body that just didn't quit.

Connor was the one to encourage Harry to cultivate his higher callings -- not just dance, but that unique spark of intelligence that Connor found so attractive. He helped Harry study so he could graduate from high school with a not-entirely-terrible GPA and pulled all the strings he could to get Harry a place in the Freshman class of Winnington. Harry's mother couldn't have been more grateful. Harry couldn't have been more in love.

Their affair started when Harry was struck with insomnia one night and came downstairs in his sleep shorts only to find Connor on the sofa, halfway through a bottle of whiskey and watching television in his underwear. Harry confessed to the man that he was so anxious about his dance audition for the college that he couldn't keep his eyes closed. Connor reasonably suggested that Harry showed him what he had prepared so far. And so it was that Harry, who unwittingly walked and talked sex, was dancing half naked for a man who was trying to drink away his growing and undeniable attraction to an 18-year-old boy.

In Connor's defense, he had sat through almost the entire routine before he was on his feet, crowding Harry back against the bookshelf. Harry was panting hard from exerting himself. Connor was panting hard from watching Harry exert himself. After an intense moment of staring each other down and seeing the want in each other's eyes, they crashed together in a passionate embrace that ended with Connor lifting Harry in his arms and carrying him to the sofa.

Harry was too young, too horny and too in love to realize that it wasn't proper to lose his virginity to his mother's boyfriend on their sofa at 3 o'clock in the morning. But it was the first time he learned how to get his ankles up on a man's shoulders, to share the most intimate part of himself and to make those exquisite noises that would make him so insanely popular on a certain website in the not so distant future.

The next morning, Harry was wracked with guilt. Connor was there to console and cosset him, assuring him that what they had was special, that Harry meant the world to him and they would make it through this. Sure enough, a few weeks later, Connor split with Harry's mother but assured her that her son would still be looked after: he offered to let Harry stay with him in his little house during his time in college since the Styles family hadn’t money to fix a broken vacuum, much less afford a second flat. While this was a great relief to the anguished woman, Harry would still come home every evening to find her sobbing brokenly in her bedroom. His guilt caused Harry to do the same.

It didn't stop him from moving in with the man he loved. For the first time in his life, he felt maybe the world didn't hate him. Harry was happy. He loved school. In this new environment, he proved to be popular. The girls wanted him. The guys respected him. People looked at him with admiration and envy when he danced. He had friends. He'd never had friends before. It was difficult to look these new friends in the eye sometimes, knowing that he couldn't possibly tell them the most intimate details of his heart since those details would get his lover fired, but it was enough that he had people who ate lunch with him, studied with him and invited him to parties.

They fought like all couples did and Harry would show his age now and again. He would storm off to the bedroom and slam the door, or run out of the house and stay out all night in a show of defiance. But he always came back in the morning and apologized. Never once did he threaten to tell anyone about their illicit relationship no matter how angry he got. So Connor trusted him. Connor relied on him. Connor started taking him a little bit for granted.

It was hard to not take Harry for granted when the professor had beautiful young men surrounding him every day. Some of whom flirted with him. Some of whom made it very obvious they would do anything to get an 'A'. And if there was one thing Connor was learning, it was that he liked sex with taut, young men very, very much.

Connor had been fucking several of his students on a regular basis for about five months when one of those students, Jason Rigby, was assigned to be Harry's lab partner. Neither Jason or Harry were very good scientists. Chemical theory baffled Harry and when asked to put that theory to practical application, the lad generally became so frustrated that he gave up and spent the majority of the period using the bunson burner to fry anything foolish enough to come into arm's reach. So one day when the boys were discussing their inevitable failure in the class, Jason pointed out that some teachers had 'other ways' of handing out good grades. Not that he would go that route with Mrs. Morgan, because a 56 year old chemistry professor with a moustache thicker than most of the boys in her class was not fuckable. "You're fucking one of your teachers?" Harry, of course, asked. "How else would I be passing English?" Jason replied. 

Harry's mind teetered on pure, jittering panic, but he staved off madness to ask, "Who's your English professor?" Jason had waggled his eyebrows and said, "The only fuckable English teacher of course. Stephens." Much to his credit, Harry still refrained from pressing the self-destruct button in his brain and followed up with, "How can you do that with no one finding out?" Jason leaned in, clearly unaware that the last person he should be sharing this with was the one person he was allowing to hear it and said, "220B is empty for three hours and we can get into it from the English department lounge. It's air tight."

It was now no longer air tight. Harry kept a grip on his rising hysteria, reminding himself that college boys often bragged about things that never happened and managed to keep himself together long enough to slip out of his morning class the next day and go hide in 220B. Harry stayed secreted away in the room until the last class of the day and calmed himself with what seemed like ample proof that Jason Rigby was full of shit. But that night, as he clung to the shoulders of the man who was thrusting inside him, he felt doubt crawling in the pit of his stomach. 

Telling himself that he was being an unfaithful boyfriend for even considering that Jason's claims had any veracity, Harry slunk out of his morning class early again the next day and hid underneath the teacher's desk in 220B one more time. He had fallen asleep and startled awake when he heard the door to the department lounge open...

From that point on, things were kind of blurry for Harry, his mind trying to protect him from what he was witnessing. He heard Connor's voice. He didn't recognize the other voice -- it wasn't Jason's. It was some kid who wore white Keds with cartoon doodles on them -- Harry could see them in the space between the desk and the floor. Then he felt the desk jolt as someone was either pushed over it or thrown atop it. Harry really couldn't be sure. He just cowered in shock and horror as he listened to the sounds of the love of his life fucking someone else practically on top of him.

"Full marks," was the only thing Harry could remember Connor saying from the encounter and he said it as he and the Keds kid slipped from the room. As soon as the door shut, Harry was throwing up in the teacher's trash can. He stayed curled there, crying and retching, until the head of the English department came in to prepare for his graduate class. When asked what was wrong, Harry didn't say anything -- he just ran home. He ran home and did the most childish thing he'd done yet in his life: he trashed the place. He broke, shattered and tore everything he could get his hands on and when that wasn't satisfying enough, he set fire to the curtains. When the fire alarm went off, he took the batteries out.

Connor was coming home from the school when he saw the smoke coming out of his house. When he ran inside, he found Harry hugging himself in a sea of broken glass and picture frames while the curtains and the wallpaper started to burn. Connor screamed at the boy, shook him, tried to get him to speak, but Harry wriggled free and screamed only, "220B!" before running out of the house.

The fire department came, but Harry was long gone. Connor didn't indict the kid. He couldn't bring himself to. He just wanted to find him, but the boy wasn't responding to any texts or calls. And Connor had a feeling Harry wouldn't be coming home and apologizing tomorrow morning.

**Author's Note:**

> I should also note I'm always looking for RP partners! It's like writing with a buddy! If you're interested, drop me a line, we'll chat: writesprite@hmamail.com


End file.
